Thursday, April 05, 2012

There was a time when we were in control of our own health care. The talk of so-called “universal” health care brought us the large HMO’s that were supposed to control costs. They did, but probably only after their CEO’s got their billion dollar payouts. They also provided us with the joys of non-medical personnel sitting in a cubicle thousands of miles away making medical decisions.
But it gets even worse, if that’s possible. Now the rocket scientists among us want to put government personnel in charge of our health care. Exqueeze me? Are we that stupid? Don’t answer that.
I’ve been severely injured twice and not once have I ever screamed for a lawyer or a politician. We will not move forward on health care until the patient is the one in charge. The patient currently navigates through the quagmire like an out of control pinball and it’s wrong.
Fortunately, though, the solutions are already woven into the fabric of our nation’s foundation. I wonder if that’s why some are going to great lengths to unravel that fabric.
You’ll have to excuse me. Election season is nearing which leads to my periodic meltdowns. I honestly can’t take the dumbness and selfishness. As a matter of fact if 50% or more of my Jewish community votes for Obama I will renounce my Judaism and become some sort of a Monk. I can’t take it anymore and I’ve really tried. Honest to G-d I have. Maybe I’ll put a propeller on my Yarmulke and fly away.
I hate to state the obvious, but the answer is in that pesky free market that has “freedom” as its core component. It’s that very freedom, too, that gives some the freedom to whine about freedom. Maybe they just hate the personal responsibility that freedom requires. Maybe they’re just ****** idiots. I’m looking into this and will soon get back with my findings.
The real solution to our current state of health scare will include:
- reducing coverage mandates – allow people to select plans that suit their own specific needs
- tax breaks for the self-insured (to match the tax breaks that corporations started getting for themselves in the late 1930’s by providing services that people should provide for themselves which they consequently deduct from their pay anyway whether the employee knows it or not)
- access to plans across state lines
- healthcare savings accounts – possibly the ultimate no-brainer of our day
- higher co-pay/higher deductible/lower premium plans
- put medical decisions firmly in the hands of patients and medical personnel
- caps on NON-ECONOMIC DAMAGES to reduce lawsuit abuse
- penalties for lawyers who make the frivolous lawsuits that significantly raise costs and create an inefficient environment of defensive medicine
But what about the poor? Shockingly, if we were to spend our $2 trillion health care expenditure on actual health care we’d have a lot left over to do whatever we wish. There’d be no problem. It’d be weird.
So where do we go from here? Probably nowhere since my optimism is waning. Romney will likely be the one taking on Hussein and we’ll see what happens once the dust from the well-orchestrated race riots of the Summer/Fall of 2012 settles.
One thing, though, is certain. We can only traverse this ravine together. United, if that’s possible, we will stand and divided we’re falling; hard.